Sublime

The last words of the Buddha were, “Be a lamp unto yourself.” He didn’t say, “Go running to this teacher or that teacher, to this center or that center”—he said, “Look—be a lamp unto yourself.”

the pontiff dispatched “an undistinguished Dominican” friar named Johann Tetzel to Germany to sell indulgences to support construction work on the imposingly ornate St. Peter’s Basilica. Tetzel’s pithy sales pitch became famous: “as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”

I am a big spender, I freely admit, but a careful one: I have kept my accounts. I cannot say that nothing has been wasted, but at least I can say what, and why, and how; I can state the causes of my impoverishment. But it is with me as with many others who have been reduced to penury through no fault of their own: everyone forgives them, but no one